ABQGOD:Toquinha: He took way more than 15 seconds to map out the first few movements, plus they used a sticker-less Dayan cube, which is illegal under official World Cube Association regulations (I am not making this up).

He should have used multiple cameras to capture all of the sides at once, and placed those cameras inside the solving box or even on the turning rods. Also, there's really nothing special about a rubik solving program anymore. Build a robot that simulates human hand structures and can manipulate a real cube with all it's creaky joints and friction, and I'll be slightly impressed.

He took way more than 15 seconds to map out the first few movements, plus they used a sticker-less Dayan cube, which is illegal under official World Cube Association regulations (I am not making this up).

I had somehow remembered that seven is also the 'sufficient minimum' for the number of times to shuffle a deck of cards...LGT PDFbut there the asymptotic result is 1.5*log_2(52) = 8.55... so now i'm confused why sites that reference this paper say 7 is enough, but whatever.... cheers

hyperdex:It's not necessarily the case that knowing 5 faces allows one to extrapolate the sixth.

For clarity, we know that the cube has six faces, a top, a bottom, and four sides. The cube consists of 8 corner pieces, 12 edge pieces, and 6 centers (which do not move). Suppose the bottom layer of the cube contains the 4 edge pieces with a blue face, and suppose none of those four blue faces are on the bottom face (so all four side faces of the cube have a blue square in the center on the bottom). Any permutation of these edge pieces that maintains the "blue on the sides" will produce the same 5 faces (top and 4 sides) but the bottom face will be different.

Toquinha:He took way more than 15 seconds to map out the first few movements, plus they used a sticker-less Dayan cube, which is illegal under official World Cube Association regulations (I am not making this up).

Worse than that, it's not even a Dayan cube, with the recesses in the center sqaure. Headline is completely wrong. This is barely interesting. Nice project, but nothing amazing happened here.

It's not necessarily the case that knowing 5 faces allows one to extrapolate the sixth.

For clarity, we know that the cube has six faces, a top, a bottom, and four sides. The cube consists of 8 corner pieces, 12 edge pieces, and 6 centers (which do not move). Suppose the bottom layer of the cube contains the 4 edge pieces with a blue face, and suppose none of those four blue faces are on the bottom face (so all four side faces of the cube have a blue square in the center on the bottom). Any permutation of these edge pieces that maintains the "blue on the sides" will produce the same 5 faces (top and 4 sides) but the bottom face will be different.

wjllope:was it necessary to scan the 6th side? (isn't that side known from the other 5?)

Good point. I wonder if 4 sides would be enough to extrapolate the whole cube. Keep in mind that not all block positions in cube are possible. For instance, if you force a corner piece to rotate unnaturally, the cube in unsolvable.

Toquinha:He took way more than 15 seconds to map out the first few movements, plus they used a sticker-less Dayan cube, which is illegal under official World Cube Association regulations (I am not making this up).

He should have used multiple cameras to capture all of the sides at once, and placed those cameras inside the solving box or even on the turning rods. Also, there's really nothing special about a rubik solving program anymore. Build a robot that simulates human hand structures and can manipulate a real cube with all it's creaky joints and friction, and I'll be slightly impressed.